2017 Twelve Hours of Sebring entry list & preview

Forty-six crews announced their participation at 2017 Twelve Hours of Sebring, the 65th running of the oldest American sports car endurance race. The race will take place at Sebring International Raceway on March 18.

The entry list for the second round of the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which counts also for the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup, includes 46 cars. There will be 11 Daytona Prototypes on the grid, plus 10 GT Le Mans (GTLM) cars, 21 GT Daytona (GTD) entries, and four Prototype Challenge (PC) cars.

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Tequila Patron ESM won the 2016 Sebring 12 hours

All crews and cars that won their classes in the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona are coming to Sebring, hoping that they can repeat what Tequila Patron ESM and Corvette Racing teams accomplished last year – victories both at 24h Daytona and 12h Sebring, so called the “36 Hours of Florida”.

Prototype field – seven DPi and four LMP2 cars

Ricky and Jordan Taylor, Daytona winners in the #10 Konica Minolta Wayne Taylor Racing’s Cadillac DPi-V, will try to achieve what their father Wayne did in 1996, writing his name on the Sebring’s winners list. After winning at Daytona with Jeff Gordon, Taylor brother will have a new co-driver at Sebring, the 23-year-old Briton Alex Lynn, in his IMSA Championship debut. Lynn came as a replacement for a long-time WTR driver Max Angelelli, who retired following the Rolex 24 but remains with the team as a co-owner.

The #10 car is one of three new Cadillac DPi cars in a Prototype field that also includes two Mazda DPi machines and a pair of Nissan DPis from the Tequila Patron ESM. The Prototype is fulfilled with four LMP2 prototypes: two Orecas, one Ligier and one Multimatic/Riley.

The #66 Ford GT has won Le Mans and Daytona. Sebring is next

#66 Ford GT is chasing a Triple Crown

In the GTLM class, the #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing crew is on a way to make historic achievement with three greatest endurance wins within a one-year period. Joey Hand, Dirk Muller and Sebastien Bourdais already won 24h Le Mans (June 2016) and Rolex 24 At Daytona (January 2017). Now, they will chase a class victory at Sebring to get a GT class Triple Crown of endurance racing.

They will have strong rivals even in their own garage, with two more Ford GTs on the grid. Last year’s Sebring GTLM winners Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler are returning in the #4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. There will be one more Corvette on the grid, plus two new Porsche 911 RSRs from the Porsche GT Team, two BMW M6 GTLMs from the BMW Team RLL and a Ferrari 488 GTE from Risi Competizione.

21 cars on the GTD grid

A GTD field will be the biggest again, with 21 cars on the grid. Surprise winners of Daytona 24h are returning in the #28 Alegra Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, with the slightly changed line-up. Carlos de Quesada, Michael Christensen and Daniel Morad will be again in a cockpit, joined by Spencer Pumpelly. Last year’s GTD winners at Sebring were Christina Nielsen, Alessandro Balzan and Jeff Segal in the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3. Nielsen and Balzan are returning with the same car, together with Matteo Cressoni as a co-driver, while Jeff Segal joined Michael Shank Racing to drive new Acura NSX GT3. The GTD grid includes eight different manufacturers: Porsche (three cars), Ferrari (1), Acura (2), Lamborghini (6), Lexus (2), Audi (3), Mercedes-AMG (3) and BMW (1).

The PC field has only four cars in their last appearance in the IMSA Championship. Performance Tech Motorsports’ #38 Oreca FLM 09, a winning car at Daytona this year, will be driven by James French, 17-year-old Mexican IndyLights driver Patricio O’Ward and IMSA Prototype Challenge regular Kyle Masson.

A programme at 3.74-mile (6.02km) circuit will begin on Thursday, March 16, with a practice session. The qualifying is set to begin at 1 PM ET on Friday, March 17. The green flag for the 65th running of 12 hours of Sebring will wave at 10:40 AM ET on Saturday, March 18.